I Would Lie And Say That You're Not On My Mind
by brookesdavis
Summary: "Want some advice?" Truthfully, Jay wanted to get so drunk that he didn't wince every time Erin moved an inch closer to her boyfriend. But he was listening anyway. "Go to the bathroom, splash some cold water on your face, and tell yourself three times that she was never yours to begin with." [Two-shot based on Platt's advice.]
1. Finally, I'm Forced To Face The Truth

**I'm back! This time with a two-shot;) Okay, so I've had this idea for a while (pretty much right after the Platt x Burgess scene in 1x13) but couldn't really figure out where I wanted it to go. I finally finished the chapter tonight, and while I'm not completely happy with it, I think it's decent.**

**Since I started it after 1x13, I've continued with the premise that Adam is still engaged to Wendy. (Not a major aspect to the plot of this fic, but I didn't want to confuse anyone haha)**

**The full lyric for the title of this fic is 'If you asked me how I'm doing, I would say I'm doing just fine. I would lie and say that you're not on my mind.' from the Gavin Degraw song, Not Over You. Check it out if you don't already know it, it's one of my faves!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything.**

**Hope you enjoy!**

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She looked happy. Dimples popping and eyes bright, Erin Lindsay looked genuinely happy. And he was breaking.

"You've gotta stop torturing yourself like this." He didn't even notice Burgess grab a stool next to him, much less hear her hushed voice in his ear. Awakened from his revery, Jay turned his attention to the side and furrowed his brow at Kim's words.

"What are you talking about?" While he brought the rim of his beer up to take a long swig, he watched Burgess' eyes swivel from his, to across the bar to his partner. Laughing animatedly with her hand resting comfortable on Severide's arm, Erin looked happy. And yet Jay couldn't help but consider how she looked when it was just the two of them; when Voight left the room, or when they were driving to a scene, and she knocked down her walls just long enough for him to get a glimpse of her world.

"You know what I'm talking about." Kim said confidently, nudging his arm softly. "You've gotta stop coming here when you know they're here together. You're just torturing yourself." Jay fingered the glass of his beer before turning his attention back to Kim. He wasn't best friends with the Police Officer, but he'd spent enough time with her to know she was about as fine as he was.

"What about you?" Jay asked it with a light tone, but his eyes were sad. He didn't have to avert his gaze anywhere in the bar; they could both hear the overbearing laughter of Ruzek from across the busy room. It was no secret that something went down with Adam and Kim, but it wasn't until the long nights Jay saw her sitting there watching him with a wholly saddened look that he realised the extent to which it went to. He couldn't even imagine the knot in her stomach when Ruzek gave her their Save The Dates.

In that very second, Jay wondered how and when it got to this. How he got the point of becoming the lonely guy at the back of the bar, watching and waiting on something that was never going to happen. He just found it painful it took him so long to realise.

"Want some advice?" Truthfully, Jay wanted to get so drunk that he didn't wince every time Erin moved an inch closer to her boyfriend. But he was listening anyway. "Go to the bathroom, splash some cold water on your face, and tell yourself three times that she was never yours to begin with."

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He did it. Burgess' cliché, romanticised advice actually worked too, and Jay found himself looking at his broken reflection in the bathroom mirror with hollowed eyes and a heavy heart. She was never his to begin with. And it was ridiculous to think she was.

He threw another splash of water on his face for good measure then left the bathroom, almost gliding across the bar and heaving the doors open until he was faced with the bitter Chicago wind. With his hands tucked tight into the pockets of his leather jacket, Jay breathed in the thick air, his lungs burning at the cold. There was a buzz to the crowded street, and Halstead gained the impression that the gusty wind could blow him away and he could have left this world without a trace.

"You leavin' already?" He paused for a second, then turned around once the words settled in his head. Erin stood with her arms folded over her chest and he immediately saw her begin to shiver. "Kelly's getting the next round." She added, as though it was enough to make him stay. If only she knew what was enough to make him stay.

His mouth opened slightly and he found his throat sore and hoarse, at a loss for words. A taxi honked behind him as it passed and trees began billowing in the distance. He realised several seconds passed without him responding, and tried desperately to string a sentence together.

"No, I..." He was too wrapped up in his clouded mind that he barely noticed her move closer, slowly rubbing her biceps attempting to generate some heat. "I should be getting home."

"You okay?"

He replied instantly, an absent-minded "Yeah" escaping his lips as he breathed out the cold air. Jay wondered if 'okay' constituted feeling a genuine sickness when he watched his partner with someone else. _  
_

_If you asked me how I'm doing, I would say I'm doing just fine. I would lie and say that you're not on my mind._

She nodded softly, but looked at him like she didn't quite believe it. She always looked at him like that; like his whole exterior was powerless to her vision, like she could see right to his core. He willed his eyes to look away, but instead he found himself looking at her harder than ever before. He counted her eyelashes and memorised the depth of her dimples. He fought the urge to push the hair caught by the wind behind her ear.

**_She was never yours to begin with. She was never yours to begin with. She was never yours to begin with._** He replayed the words in his head like a mantra, repeating the syllables so monotonously that they lost all meaning. **_She was never yours to begin with._** Oh, but how he wished she was.

"I was an idiot." The shrill wind carried Jay's words the second they were blurted from his lips. He felt the blood pumping in his ears, and his gulp was amplified through every pore in his body.

"I'm not denying it, but you wanna give me some specifics?" The lopsided smile she flashed him as she stepped an inch closer told him she was oblivious to his thoughts, and he knew that this is his chance to back out of it; to delete the words forming in his head and backspace to a simpler time. A time when he didn't find himself breaking at the sight of her with the fireman from across the bar.

Instead, he silenced the fearful thoughts buzzing round his head and breathed. Because he was scared of what could happen, but he was terrified of what might not.

"For walking away... was an idiot." Her grin slowly faded as he continued. "And now you're with the fireman, and that's great, that's... Honestly, I'm happy for you... It's just..." As he licked his lips he wondered where all this courage was two months ago. "I don't wanna keep it professional." In that moment, everything around them went quiet.

"What are you talking about?" Erin's eyes were wide with disbelief, and her dry lips parted, wanting desperately for him to take it back. Jay found her question redundant, considering his last statement made everything pretty obvious. For both of them. Her eyes burned at the contact with his, and he took note of how bright hers were shining.

"I'm late, I know..." Jay felt his fingers tremble at his sides. He told himself it was due to the cold. "I just thought you should know."

He relinquished a sad smile and turned his body with the aid of the fierce wind, nothing but Burgess'_ 'she was never yours to begin with'_ swirling through his head as he strode down the street, all before Erin found the power to breathe again.

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**It's not amazing, I know. I'm just dealing with Lindstead withdrawal (already, yes) and wanted some kind of Jay declaration. **

**I'll try and get the second and final chapter up and finished as soon as I can.**

**Please leave a review and tell me what you thought:)**


	2. No Matter What I Say, I'm Not Over You

**Chapter two is here for you guys! I'm not that happy with this chapter either, and it gets kinda cheesy in the middle. I've rewritten this so many times that I'm just going to post this chapter and hope you all like it! Thank you all for your patience, as I know I'm not the quickest updater;)**

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He headed home and went straight to bed. He needed an escape from the constant replaying of his words that ran through his head; he wanted to forget every syllable that escaped his lips. And for a few hours, he did.

He silenced his racing mind under the seclusion of the thick duvet and attempted to force himself into a deep sleep.

A knocking at the door woke him hours later, tearing him from the time of bliss he had managed to savour. Jay tore his body from the comfort of his bed and made his way to the front door, where the relentless knocking refused to subside. While rubbing his eyes and yawning, Jay opened the door, immediately stopping in his tracks at the sight of his partner.

He gulped before she even started talking. He knew her well enough to know that he wasn't going to be subject to a friendly conversation. "What the hell is the matter with you?" Erin spat with a snarled lip. She attempted to maintain composure, but Jay still took note of her softened eyes.

He couldn't think of anything to say. He tried thinking of what Erin would want him to say, but came to the conclusion that Erin would want him to stand there and shut up while she yelled.

"I just..." She started shaking her head, disbelief still painted across her face. "I don't understand what was going through your head."

"I-"

"You get that I'm happy, right? Severide makes me happy." It was like a blow to the chest. It wasn't anything he didn't already know, though. "And I deserve that. I've been through a lot, I deserve to be happy." He felt his throat constrict under the force of her words.

"I know," He was flustered for words as he attempted to somehow explain how he felt. "I want you to be happy, I do, but-"

"So then why did you say all that?" The redness of her eyes deepened with each passing second, and Jay felt a cold silence set in. "Why did you leave it until now to say? Where was all this two months ago?" He desperately wanted to give her an answer, a viable answer.

"I told you, I was an idiot." He tried to create a more imaginative response, but his idiocy was the only thing running through his mind.

"No, tonight you were an idiot." She corrected him, pointing at his chest. "I mean, telling me you don't want to keep it professional, what the hell am I supposed to do with that?" Although Jay heard it rhetorically, Erin was begging for an answer. She was silently pleading for some direction in what to do. She wanted a reason; an explanation as to why when she uttered the words 'It's probably better we just keep it professional, right?', he didn't tell her everything he did earlier that night.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Kelly's good for me." Jay wondered whether Erin was telling him or herself. "He's a man, you know. He knows what he wants and he takes it." She paused for a second, letting the words settle in Jay's head. "And he doesn't wear the same black hoodie to work everyday. And he doesn't beat up guys on the street for no good reason. And he doesn't infuriate Voight. And he hasn't been accused of murder any time recently." She spat the words, fully aware of their cruelty. She didn't want to tear Jay down, but her mind pulsed inside of her, screaming for reasons of why Kelly was a better man than Jay.

Jay felt his fuse shorten with each passing reason and finally snapped. "So why are you here then, Erin?" She didn't expect him to push back at her, and steadies her face as he does. "Huh?"

"Because!" She nearly screamed, her voice broken and hoarse. Jay watched as she blinked back tears in her reddened eyes, her lips quivering ever so softly. "Because he's not you!"

Erin felt inexplicably exhausted with each passing second, as though all the strength she had managed to muster was evaporating. She hated that she didn't look at Kelly the same way she looked at Jay. She hated that she didn't crave that single look from her boyfriend, the glance she ached for from her partner, that made her world make sense, even if just for a second.

Jay felt his lips part and his eyes steady. It was probably the last thing he expected her to say. Her eyes pleaded with his, but he couldn't find the words.

"Because I don't have to physically turn away when Kelly talks to another girl. Because I don't smell his cologne on my skin when I go to bed, and feel safe because of it. Because he doesn't own nice suits." Jay felt the corner of his mouth twitch, threatening to expose a smile at her last reason. "He's not you. He's not you and I hate that."

She wanted to scream in his face with all her might. She wanted him to pull her close and whisper that everything would be alright; that it didn't matter that they were partners or best friends or practically doomed from the beginning. She wanted to yell into his shoulder that she broke up with The Fireman twelve minutes after he'd left. She wanted to hit him for leading her to break up with an amazing guy.

She didn't even realise she was crying until her partner wrapped his arms around her and she was held against his bare torso, her tears smearing across his shoulder. She felt her body shake against his, and his arms round her back.

"I'm sorry." He mumbled soft and slow into her hair.

"Stop saying sorry."

But considering everything, Jay wasn't sorry. He didn't regret what he's said. He just regretted leaving it so late. But regardless of his bad timing, Jay smiled sadly into the tangled hair of his parter, knowing that he could hold her as close as possible, bone to bone, and she still wouldn't be close enough. And while a nagging part of Halstead told him anything between the two young, naive detectives wouldn't and couldn't last, he held on regardless. He held her through the shaking and crying and fears of their inevitability. He held her through the blind hope that if anything were to happen, he'd give it his best damn shot.

He heard Burgess' words run through his mind one last time._ 'She was never yours to begin with'_. And he wanted to laugh at how wrong that sequence of words was. She's always been his, like he's always been hers. And while his chest was lighter with the weight of his words flung out and between them, he was just as grounded as he always was.

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**Thank you for reading! Please please leave a review?**


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